


Speak to Me

by indigoat



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Languages and Linguistics, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigoat/pseuds/indigoat
Summary: Nyota Uhura is the first friend Spock makes at Starfleet Academy.





	Speak to Me

Spock had been living on earth for five days, seventeen hours, and twenty two minutes and had only spoken to one person—the dean of the Starfleet academy, who had greeted him when he arrived at the school and gave him instructions for setting up the security pad outside his dorm room. The lack of attention his classmates had paid him insofar would have been rather upsetting if he has not been half Vulcan and therefore unencumbered by feeling of loneliness (at least, that was what he told himself).

Growing up on Vulcan with a native father and a human mother was difficult. Whisperings of his father’s disloyalty to the race and the shame he brought them all followed Spock wherever he ventured, until the only solace that could be had was in exploring the sandy red dunes with his pet I-Chaya, his only companion. It was clear to Spock that he would ever fit in with Vulcans, not all the way. His classmates saw him as an outsider to be avoided as if he were a carrier of plague, and the adults saw him as some pitiable thing, what with his disadvantage of having human blood running through his veins. He knew it would not end when he graduated from primary school at age 21.

So he sent an application to earth, much to his father’s quiet but present disapproval, to join the international space programme they offered—Starfleet. Spock could not understand why his father disapproved of his decision to join Starfleet when he himself was an ambassador to earth. If he had wanted an all Vulcan son, why did he choose to have offspring with a human woman? Why not stay with the Vulcan that was chosen for him by his parents?

Spock’s mother, on the other hand, had excitedly read the acceptance letter he received from Starfleet and helped him organise his trip to earth. He suspected his mother went through the same daily ordeal that he did—but on an even more painful scale, as she could not control her emotions and had to let them sweep over her, in full. But he didn’t pity her—he knew how humiliating pity was. 

He liked what he’d seen of Earth so far, even though the chilly November weather was unlike the boiling temperatures on Vulcan (due to his biological make-up, Spock often overheated during the hotter summer months on his planet while he was exercising or exploring, and these cooler temperatures where much easier to cope with, if one wore a thick sweater and two pairs of sock). The Starfleet buildings was impressive and modern, very different from the traditional temples he grew up in.

But he was—even if he wouldn’t think of it, much less admit it—lonely. His classmates by and large ignored him, or simply saw him as part of a backdrop to their scenes, like a chair or a vase of flowers. He had been counting on interactions with the others to add to what he was learning in class, but so far, that had not happened.

Part of this was his fault—Spock preferred smaller groups of people as a principle and found it taxing to make new acquaintances, especially with a race as unpredictable and illogical as the one he found himself submerged in. And yet, he now had no one to share his fascinations with. On Vulcan he didn’t have much, but on earth he was totally alone. 

He was walking to his dorm from the lab lost in thought when he heard something that sent visions of his home planet rushing into his mind. Someone was speaking Vulcan.   
Spock followed the sound down a corridor and stopped in front of one of the doors. It was a woman’s voice, carefully curving around the language’s soft sounds and jagged edges. He knocked on the door. The voice stopped. 

The door slid open halfway and a young woman looked up at him. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and she was wearing the cadet uniform skirt and a navy-blue sweatshirt.

“Can I help you?”

“I could not help but notice that you were speaking in my native tongue,” Spock said. It felt good to use his first language again. “However, I noticed that you seemed unaware of the correct conjugation of ‘you’re’ in the present tense.”

The woman opened the door wider and took a step back, sizing him up. “You must be the guy from Vulcan everyone’s talking about, yeah? Here, come in.”

Her room was the same size as his, but it had been filled with so many decorations and personal touches that it appeared to be smaller. The four walls had been plastered with posters of distant galaxies and vintage posters from century old rock groups, as well as photographs, many of them featuring the woman with another person around her age, with pale green skin and long red hair pulled into a plait. A harp, an acoustic guitar, and a seven stringed instrument that Spock didn’t recognise but looked faintly Gorn-ish in origin were resting on the floor and the little desk. The woman kicked a rumpled uniform under one of the beds and picked a PADD of the desk chair. “Sorry for the mess. My roommate’s a total slob. I’m Nyota, by the way.”

“Spock,” he responded, sitting down in the chair and folding his hands in his lap. Nyota smiled at him.

“What do you think of Earth? How’s it different from Vulcan? Do you think Starfleet’s a good school so far? Are you thinking of enlisting for a position on one of the starships?” The questions were rapid-fire, a mix of Vulcan and English slang. The time passed faster than it had since Spock had arrived, and before he knew it he was being greeted by Nyota’s roommate, Gaila, and then being ushered out, but not before agreeing that yes, he’d stop by some other time.

And that he did. Between his classes and homework, Nyota became a constant in his life, and soon Gailia as well, and then their friends, and friends of their friends. He met a training medial officer named Christine Chapel who Gaila said fancied him, as well as a science officer, Carol Marcus, who loved to discuss string theory and what it meant for life everywhere in the universe.  
Nyota was by far the most prominent of these companions, as they spent endless hours talking in a mix of Vulcan and English on all sorts of subjects—the classes they were taking, memories from their childhoods, plans for the future of themselves and the many worlds out there. Once she took out her harp, and he taught her traditional Vulcan songs and then accompanied her vocals on the instrument.

Sometimes, Spock would stop listening to the words Nyota was saying and just let the sound of her voice flood his ears. She was improving greatly, masterfully articulating the tougher sounds of the Vulcan language, and the way that she switched from Vulcan to English as easily as flipping a switch seemed to make the conflict inside of him lesser. For once, his body and mind were not at war with one another, but working as one, learning how to coexist… to prosper together.


End file.
